


we were together, i forget the rest

by erlkoenig



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, a aseries of vignettes in a heart beat, not all happy endings are happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 21:06:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16145504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erlkoenig/pseuds/erlkoenig
Summary: They say love feels like falling.





	we were together, i forget the rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Grundy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grundy/gifts).



They say love feels like falling.

He looks back, sees him there clutching his shoulder and looking afraid. 

_ When they tell the story, no one will ever say they were afraid.  _

He’s holding his shoulder, his sword against his hip and their eyes meet for a moment across the chaos, like meeting across the years and there’s a jolt in the pit of his stomach that feels like falling.

Stories are nothing more than stories. They are the should-have’s and the could-have’s, something beautiful and poetic that gives a meaning to the chaos. Maybe the stories and songs will tell about falling, maybe they will sing of their love and their bravery, because of course they will. If there are stories about them, they will be beautiful.

He meets his eyes across the chaos and they are afraid, sticky and hot like pitch in their stomachs and there are a thousand things they never get to say.

Is it heroism, duty, or is it sad circumstance? Time pitches forward and his feet sweep him away, watching wide-eyed as Ecthelion reaches for his sword. Is it heroism or duty, or is it that bile-bitter need to try and live, to live, to live. 

He is falling. 

There is something in the pitch, the roll, the burning and the blunt end that feels like coming home. He is falling and for a moment he can see the pages of the story, a flutter of paper caught in a breeze.

Maybe the story begins on a cloudless day in Gondolin, the sun a dot on the horizon, the feel of soft grass beneath them and the smell of rain on the breeze, far away for now. Maybe it begins when he looks into silver-blue eyes and sees, maybe for the first time in his life, the quirk of lips and the crinkle of lines at the corners of his eyes. 

Maybe it begins there, something soft and lovely. Something to soothe the ache to come. 

He likes to think it begins there. Let all the world know how smitten he was, long ago when the world still held them gently. Long ago, when he was free to fall. 

There are a lot of maybe’s in this story. 

All the world is rushing up to meet him and he thinks -- no, he knows, he know that there will be story and song. He knows that their deaths have to mean something, anything at all. He knows that whatever happens will have been worthwhile.

The world ends in a mouthful of dust, in a heartbeat. A quiet, half-muted thud and there is nothing. Nothing. He is not falling and yet he is falling forever.

Blinks and he is laughing over drinks with the most beautiful creature he has ever seen.

Blinks and he is tangled under sheets, knee over hip, listening to the rain outside.

Blinks and he is closing his eyes for the last time, mouth full of rust.

Blinks and he is awake.

All the world is dark and painting in silver and diamonds. He would laugh, can feel it like a knot behind his ribs and then he is gasping for air. Fingertips pressed tight to his chest, there are tears in his eyes and a name on his lips but he cannot move, cannot make a sound.

Time passes like the slow thaw of winter. He waits, closes his eyes long enough to remember and when he opens them again another moment has passed. A hundred lifetimes have come and gone and he lives them all in heartbeats.

He closes his eyes.

The grass beneath him is soft, green, welcoming, splayed out beneath him and cradling him home. He takes a breath, eyes shut so tight because this is a good memory, he knows this one, knows how brief and beautiful it is. He keeps his eyes closed tight, fingers digging into the soft, damp, black soil.

“I never thought you would fall.”

This isn’t how the memory goes. He opens his eyes, dirt under his nails as he turn his head just so. There are silver-blue eyes, the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. 

“You.” He breathes. There is nothing else to say.

“Me,” Ecthelion says with a smile that is too sad for his lovely face. “I am so angry with you.”

He sits up, reaching out. “Why?” He says with his fingertips, brushing back a lock of hair. “Why?”

“You were supposed to make it out.” He laughs, Ecthelion laughs in that way that shows a flash of teeth, lips parting for a moment to make the sound and oh he misses the way they feel against him, the taste of that laughter. “Does that even make sense?”

He wants to ask, to what end? Wants to demand, without you? Wants to say a thousand things that play at the tip of his tongue but instead his fingers tuck a shock of dark hair behind Ecthelion’s ear and presses an apology to the corner of his lips.

There’s a shadow on the horizon. Something is coming and he can feel it in the hollow of his bones, can see it in the darkening of his beloved’s eyes and so he holds on with all he has.

They have this, an after, whether or not it is a happily ever after. They have this, home.

He can remember the empty ache of the Halls, the distant flickering of the dew of Telperion that seemed to beckon him onward and he thinks, it is fine. It is fine. It is all fine.

Somewhere there was a threshold, and he stumbled past it into the arms of another. Somewhere the blue-white lights of mourning became something sweet and soft and and alive in his arms. 

There’s a shadow on the horizon, but he doesn’t talk of it. Presses fingertips to skin and presses his lips to the corner of a mouth, promises a forever. Thinks,  _ your time is over, let me take care of you _ with a smile, lungs full of the sweet smell of Ecthelion, the taste and press of him.

_ I will come home to you _ , he thinks, threading his fingers through dark locks.

_ I know,  _ comes the answer, fingers pressed through fingers and holding on tight.  _ I know.  _

 


End file.
